Playing By The Rules
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: He made it casual, so unnoticed by everyone else that it made it more amusing to them both.


**Playing By The Rules**

He passes her in the halls, and there's a jumping in his chest he's never felt before when she looks up and notices him glancing at her. He's not sure what it is, but somehow he's ended up altering his usual path to the training room if he knows that she's on her way for tactical reviews just so that he can pass her. If she notices, which she always does, then she gives him this sly smirk that tells him that she likes these unspoken meetings they seem to be arranging.

So he kept doing it.

He made it casual, so unnoticed by everyone else that it made it more amusing to them both. They never spoke of it, and they never vocally arranged it, but he noticed that she sometimes announced where she was heading when she left a group debriefing, rather than just disappearing as she usually did. It made it much easier for him to be approaching from another direction, especially in the mazes of the various S.H.I.E.L.D. bases they turned into playgrounds with shuffling eyes, small glances and those ever so constant smirks.

When he noticed that she was starting to do the same to his trips around the bases, it became more of a game, an invitation to step it up and take it a step further. Then it became a gentle brush of skin; his hand skimming hers, a mistaken bump into her, a knock of his hip against hers. The smirks grew with the touches, as did his interest in this new game they were playing.

And so the playing field was extended. Hallways turned into the training room, where they would let fingertips linger against wrists as they passed over equipment, brush hips against backs as they adjusted one anothers aims. If their teammates notices, they said nothing, and he was certain that the ones that would notice were the ones that would speak up immediately. The training room extended to the briefing room, where leaning back in ones chair gave them an opportunity to play with exposed skin at the bottom of ones shirt, or his personal favourite, to allow her knee to nudge against his beneath the table.

But one day, it was all gone.

Her usual trips down the hallways weren't occuring on that particular Thursday. He hadn't timed it wrong because over the last month they'd become very particular about this game, arrangement, whatever it was. The training room was void of the shared workouts and challenges, the briefing room wasn't even graced with her presence, which infuriated Coulson despite the lack of complaint from him. He didn't push it and he didn't go looking for her. He knew better when it came to her and he knew both of their limits.

He didn't expect to be, for lack of a better response, sexually harrassed when he retired to his room for the night. The dim quarters were all silver and polished and military, which never bothered him, but the instant he realised she was there, there was colour in the room, mainly the red of her hair and the room never seemed more alive. The door had barely closed behind him and he hadn't even flipped on the light when lips were against his, chest to chest, hips to hips, knees to knees. All the teasing locations of the past month crushed together in what had been her moment of retaliation, or surrender, he didn't mind which.

The game was over, he realised as he flicked the lock across with a blind hand and lifted her against him. He'd only seen a flash of red hair in the darkness of the room and he didn't even need to see that to know who it was. Only one person stood at that height before him, had a scar on her elbow that jutted out just enough to feel, knew about the weakness of that spot on his left collarbone.

"Was wondering when I'd be seeing you today," he said casually - far too casually for someone trailing his lips along her jaw. "Missed you."

"No more games," she told him, far too calmly for someone who was arching her back to his movements.

"Then let's do this right," he told her, returning his lips to his task and allowing the game - the new game, with new rules and regulations - to continue.


End file.
